City Life: Real English Listening Practice (Level 2)

One speaker describes a city that is "chocked full of temples" and, in the same breath, admits "it's exhausting to be there" — then says everyone should see it anyway. Another describes beaches, kayaking and mountains with snow on top "right into June". Your job, before anyone tells you the answer, is to work out which one is Bangkok and which is Vancouver. That's how this episode starts, and it doesn't get any more scripted from there.

What you'll hear in this episode

Three listening tasks, built from unscripted English conversations about cities.

First, Nicholas and Sybil each describe a city without naming it. Nicholas talks about temples, a skytrain, and a place that is "not clean"; Sybil talks about one of the world's most beautiful harbours, a nearby ski resort, and a population that arrived "in droves" from all around the world. You match the speaker to the city.

Then Katie sets the scene in a café in Barcelona and asks Kim and Alec whether they prefer city or countryside. Kim says "I'm...half and half". Katie admits the fantasy doesn't quite survive contact with reality: "The problem is when you live in the city, you're always so busy, you never have time to do any of that stuff." The conversation ends with a joke about retiring to the country later.

Finally, three speakers name a favourite city. Ronny chooses Paris, praising the architecture and "a chicness" the French seem to have "in their DNA". Mike picks Jerusalem for its history, then admits it isn't somewhere he'd want to live, and goes on to talk about Sana'a and Damascus — beautiful old cities, "If...they were liveable." Sandra works through San Francisco, Florence and Venice, which she calls incredible, "Even if it may be sinking."

Quick facts

Episode	Zapp! English Listening MP3 2.6 – City Life
Episode number	2.6
Pack	Listening 2
Level	2
Duration	14 minutes 23 seconds
Audio	Free to download
Workbook	Included in the all-in-one pack (€39)

What you'll learn

The main skill here is listening for identifying detail — hearing enough clues to name something the speaker never names. Nicholas and Sybil don't say "Bangkok" or "Vancouver", so you have to hold several details in your head at once and decide what they add up to.

You'll also get a lot of practice with unfinished, self-correcting speech, which is what real English sounds like. Nicholas says "I'm not sure if it's...if it's pure". Alec answers Katie's question with a single word — "Same." — and only then explains. Kim starts sentences she doesn't finish, and Katie fills the gaps with "Mmm" and "Yeah". If you've only ever listened to studio-recorded coursebook audio, this is the gap you need to close.

The third task trains a different skill: listening against a checklist. You're asked whether anyone mentions history, buildings, clothes or trains. Three of those come up; one doesn't. It teaches you to listen for a topic rather than for words, because Ronny never says "clothes" — he talks about winding a scarf around your neck.

Along the way you'll pick up how English speakers hedge an opinion: "I'm...half and half", "That's a hard question to answer", "it probably sounds...you know...very commonplace".

Vocabulary from the workbook

The glossary covers the words that carry the descriptions:

temples (noun) – religious buildings, especially in Asia — Nicholas's main reason for recommending the city
harbours (US: harbors) (noun) – places that boats stop and keep safe from the sea — Sybil's first clue
chicness (noun) – stylishness — Ronny on the way the French dress
sophisticated – knowing or having a lot of culture and fashion — Sandra on San Francisco
canals (noun) – a long thin man made river — Sandra on getting around Venice by ferry

Inside the workbook

The workbook takes you through all three listening tasks with answers after each one, so you can check whether you matched Nicholas and Sybil to the right cities before moving on.

After the main unit there are extra listening questions that send you back to the audio a second time: note down as many good things as you can remember about Bangkok and Vancouver; count how many cities Ronny mentions and name them; work out the reasons Mike gives for liking both Jerusalem and Sana'a; list what Sandra says about each of her three cities. Answers are supplied at the end, and the full transcript is there so you can see exactly why you missed something.

There's also a guessing-from-context exercise on five expressions taken straight from the recordings — in the middle of nowhere, the best of both worlds, in droves, fortunate and thumbs up — where you decide the word class first, then match each one to a definition. It's the skill of coping with unknown words, practised on real ones.

The workbook for this episode comes with the complete Zapp! English pack.

Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39

Common questions

Is the audio really unscripted?

The conversations are, yes — nobody was given lines, which is why you'll hear false starts and half-finished sentences. The teaching sections that set up each task and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.

What level is this episode?

Level 2, from the Listening 2 pack. The tasks are short and the questions are concrete, so you don't need to understand every word to complete them.

How long is it?

14 minutes 23 seconds, split into three tasks — comfortable to do in one sitting, or one task at a time.

Do I need the workbook?

The audio works on its own. The workbook adds the answer keys, the extra recall questions, the vocabulary exercise and the transcript, which is where most of the learning happens on a second listen.

Which cities are actually discussed?

Bangkok, Vancouver, Barcelona, Paris, New York, Chiang Mai, Jerusalem, Sana'a, Damascus, San Francisco, Florence and Venice.

Get this episode

To save the audio, right-click the MP3 link and choose Save link as.

Listen on